Improvement in car-trucks



L. H. WEST.

Car Truck.

n 3 Yb tri r I I, Witnesses [0H Inventor:

- .Zera'fifls? AM. PHOTU-UTHO. CU. NIY. (OSBDRNE'S .PRDCESS) NITED STATES LEVI H. WEST, OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT lN CAR-TRUCKS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 55,403, dated June 5, 1866.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, LEVI H. WEST, of Cambridge, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have made a new and useful invention, having reference to Street or Horse Railway Carriages; and I do hereby declare the same to be fully described in the following specification, and represented in the accompanying drawing, which is a side view of a street-railway carriage-truck as provided with my invention.

My improvement has particular reference to the arrangement which constitutes the subject of apatent numbered 49,942, and granted to me on the 12th day of September, of the year 1865; and it consists in the combination, with an elastic or spring fulcrum, with each of the truck or wheel-trame-supportin g levers, or the same and its spring, whether such spring be arranged either above or below the platform-frame,or be applied directly thereto or to another spring or elastic arm applied to such frame.

In the drawing, the platform-frame of the carriage-body is represented at A, and the truck-frame at B. The said truck-frame has two axle-boxes, a a, on each side of it, which are fixed within and make parts of it. These boxes receive, in the ordinary manner, the journals of the next adjacent wheels,G O.

Underneath each side of the platform-frame A are two levers,.D .D, which at their inner en ds bear on the truck frame B, and directly over the boxes to a. The fulcra c c of these levers are supported by. the platform-frame, u n d are arranged with respect to the truck-frame in manner as represented. Each fulcrum E, instead of bein g constructed of rigid materials and in the usual manner, consists of two sockets or hearingplates, 61 d, and an intervening spring or block, 0, of india-rubber or its equivalent, the same being an elastic fulcrum. The opposite or outer end of each lever D is connected with another spring, F, by one or more rods, g, or their equivalents, each spring being arranged either above or below the platform-frame, and with respect to the leverin manner as shown in the drawing, wherein the spring is represented in one instance as suspended from the platform-frame and having thelever resting on it. In another instance the spring is exhibited as situated above the platform-frame and on a spring-arm, G, arranged thereon. The spring, instead of being on such arm, may be on the said frame.

It has been found that with a rigid fulcrum there is more or less jar to the carriage, notwithstanding the lever has a spring connected with it, but with the spring-fulcrumthe jar is nearly if not wholly imperceptible.

The improvement is one of great utility,and

causes the car to run with great ease to its passengers. The elastic fulera not only operate to ease the carriage when in movement in vertical directions, but they serve to resist lateral shocks of the wheels against the rails, and to ease the carriage against such. Thus they perform not only the ordinary duties of the rigid fulcra, but others whereby in their arrangements they are productive of new effects.

I do not herein claim the arrangement of the truck and platformframes A B, and the levers D D,and their outer springs, F F but What I do claim as my invention is- The combination and arrangement of the elastic fulcra or the springs e c with the said frames A B and the levers D D, or the same and the springs F F, the whole being substantially as and so as to operate as specified.

LEVI H. WEST.

Witnesses R. H. EDDY, F. P. HALE, Jr. 

